167: Susan Norvill

Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

My guest this week is journalist, editor and poet Susan Norvill, who like me was in Lampeter in the early 1990s where she read Victorian Studies and English Literature.
We find out about Susan’s love of Victorian literature and what drew her to Lampeter, and how the place exerts such a hold over those who went there, and how the people are still there for us.
Susan grew up in Weston-super-Mare and went to a convent school in Bristol, and we find out about her first job after leaving university as a mortgage counsellor.
Susan worked at the Albert Hotel in Weston in the summer holidays while she was at university and recounts the time when she bumped into Anthony Hopkins while he was filming The Remains of the Day. We discover that Susan was offered a job as an extra and find out why she unfortunately had to decline.
We talk about Susan’s earliest memories and her love of Anne of Green Gables. She did a teacher training course in Scarborough after graduating, and we talk about the literary connections in the North Yorkshire town.
We find out about Susan’s affinity with the Victorian era, and with the music of the 90s when we were at Lampeter. We talk about how the journey to school in Bristol in the car was very music-oriented, and Susan’s affection for Roy Orbison.
We discuss the influence of radio, vinyl, cassettes and other audio technologies as well as Ceefax, and about which facets of the past appeal, and whether you have to live through an era to feel connected to it.
Susan edited the Hong Kong Industrialist in the 1990s and we find out about her time in Hong Kong at the time of the Handover. We also find out about Susan’s poetry, and the anthology she collated and edited following the Ukrainian invasion by Russia, United for Ukraine.

Then, towards the end of the interview, Susan reflects on the bittersweet nature of nostalgia and how the past serves the present. We find out what Susan’s younger self wanted to be and, at the end, we discover whether Susan is a looking back or a looking forward type of person.